Well, I was going to tell you all about how the Commonwealth Contest went. But let’s preempt that for a bit about the March OARC meeting.
March Meeting brought comments, ideas and enthusiasm… and many new faces
I admit I was skeptical about the whole idea of getting together to take the temperature of members on the 5 topics chosen. Boy was I wrong. I expected about one person per table beyond the subject-matter expert and scribe. Instead, we had pretty much a full house. The comments, ideas and enthusiasm were great to see. It also didn’t hurt that so many of the faces around the table were not the same old bunch who all knew each others’ stories, exploits and tall tales. If we can turn all that into action, it bodes well for the club’s future.
OK, now about that contest.
From Kenya to Australia, lots of QSOs from across Commonwealth during March 8-9 contest
The idea was to make some waves and get the station noticed outside of the Ottawa bubble. It got off to an “interesting” start. I first tried to find out how to get VE3RHQ recognized as a headquarters station, meaning bonus points for those who contacted us. It turned out to be easier than in past years. This time it seemed to be “just do it”, so we did.
Then, in typing with BBW, he pointed out that the 10:00 UTC start time was 05:00 local time, not 15:00. I had gotten my pluses and minuses mixed up in doing the time conversion, so it was an earlier start to the day than I had originally planned. Unfortunately, buses don’t seem to run that early on weekend mornings, so we got off to a later start. There was still lots of activity to be had when I finally got in a bit before 07:00.
Then came the real problems. The end fed wouldn’t tune up on 80 or 40, even with the built-in tuner. OK, I had brought in the manual external tuner from home (just in case). Then, the radio talked to the computer, but the computer would only talk to the radio until the rig went into transmit. Ferrite beads were liberally sprinkled among all the cables, to no avail. Fine, that’s why I brought the external memory keyer (just in case). It meant a little bit more typing and paddling than a fully integrated system, but it was still usable. A little after lunch time, BBW arrived with an interesting looking paddle, and took over. Naturally the QSO rate went up. Putting someone (anyone) else in front of the rig seems to cause that to happen, but maybe that’s just me.
Then VLW arrived for his Advanced test and a bit later a few others arrived to have a look at the proceedings. One by one they all left and I settled in for a long evening and overnight shift. It was slow going at times, but there were enough QSOs to keep me going. You have to be happy when Kenya calls you, right before Australia, with others waiting in line. How about leaving 80M for just a look, and finding New Zealand all alone on 20M. For that matter, contacting Wales on 80, using an antenna that just maybe, is partially buried under the snow. Although I tried to look from various places on the ground, I decided NOT to go up to the roof to be sure.
Of course, there were a few clueless Americans, who didn’t know the contest was limited to the British Commonwealth, and not the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but you can’t help answering when a station in Brazil wants to say hi. Thank you to the local stations who gave us a contact, some on most of the bands we had, even up to the last few minutes of the contest, when any station is a welcome QSO. Let’s do it again next year.
73
mk
VE3FFK
Last Updated on 2025-04-08 by Joannadanna